Interest in nanotechnology, in particular sub-microelectronic technologies such as semiconductor quantum dots and nanowires, has been motivated by the challenges of chemistry and physics at the nanoscale, and by the prospect of utilizing these structures in electronic and related devices. Nanoscopic articles might be well-suited for transport of charge carriers and excitons (e.g. electrons, electron pairs, etc.) and thus may be useful as building blocks in nanoscale electronics applications. Nanoscale wires are well-suited for efficient transport of charge carriers and excitons, and thus are expected to be important building blocks for nanoscale electronics and optoelectronics.
Nanoscale wires having selectively functionalized surfaces have been described in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 7,129,554, issued Oct. 31, 2006, entitled “Nanosensors,” by Lieber, et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. As described, functionalization of a nanoscale wire may permit interaction of the functionalized nanoscale wire with various entities, such as molecular entities, and the interaction induces a change in a property of the functionalized nanoscale wire, which provides a mechanism for a nanoscale sensor device for detecting the presence or absence of an analyte suspected to be present in a sample.
However, it can be difficult to determine when an analyte has interacted with a functionalized nanowire in a relatively “noisy” environment, for example, when the analyte is present in a physiological fluid such as blood. The presence of salt, ions, proteins, carbohydrates, etc. within such environments can make it difficult or impossible to identify when an analyte has bound to or otherwise interacted with the nanoscale wire. Accordingly, improvements in such technologies are still needed.